We propose a new category of consumption goods, memorable goods, that generate a utility flow even after physical consumption. Empirically, memorable goods expenditures exhibit frequent zero monthly purchases and lumpy expenditure spikes. Memorable goods expenditures are 20% the size of nondurable expenditures, but three times as volatile. We then develop a consumption‐savings model with borrowing constraints and income risk that formalizes the notion of memorable goods and distinguishes them from other nondurable goods. We show that consumers optimally choose lumpy consumption of memorable goods. We then measure the welfare cost of consumption fluctuations using our calibrated model and empirically evaluate our calibrated model's predictions for the consumption response to predictable income changes. We find that the welfare cost of household‐level consumption fluctuations induced by income shocks fall from 20.4 to 12.3 percentage points if memorable goods are accounted for, and that empirical estimates of excess sensitivity of consumption may significantly be driven by memorable goods expenditures.

中文翻译：

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难忘物品存在下消费的福利成本波动

我们提出了一种新的消费商品，即难忘的商品，即使在实际消费后也能产生效用流。从经验上讲，难忘的商品支出经常出现零月度购买量，并且总支出会出现大块增长。难忘的商品支出是非耐用品支出的20％，但波动性是其三倍。然后，我们开发一种具有借贷约束和收入风险的消费储蓄模型，该模型将难忘商品的概念形式化，并将其与其他非耐用品区分。我们表明，消费者最佳地选择了难忘物品的块状消费。然后，我们使用校准模型来衡量消费波动的福利成本，并通过经验评估校准模型对消费对可预测收入变化的响应的预测。